Hidden dangers in your lipstick

Children, pregnant women and you may be in danger if certain ingredients are included in your lipstick.

Lipstick, its the one cosmetic most women wont leave home without. We apply it in the morning, when we get to work and when we go out but, ever wonder how much of the shimmery shiny stuff we swallow over the course of a lifetime, and what the hidden dangers may be?

"We know that women are eating a lot of lipstick, we may be eating pounds of lipstick over our lifetime." Said Eve Plews, president of Full Spectrum Health in Sarasota. But, this number may vary as some women wear lipstick occasionally while others reapply many times a day.

We know now that there could be as much lead in a single tube of lipstick as could damage the brain of a child.

According to the CDC there is no safe level of lead for pregnant women and children, which may be of concern if your child gets a hold of your cosmetics bag.

"Constant exposure, low level exposures to things like toxic metals, like lead, arsenic and aluminum are potentially hazardous, not just to your brain but to your bones and to your kidneys." Said Plews.

"And, there are other ingredients that you wont see on the label." Said Cherylyn Van Kirk of Starflower Organic Spathecary. "Phthalates are hidden constituants that are found in petro chemicals and theyre not required to list these ,"

The concern with phthalates, is that they are in many commercial lipsticks and glosses

"These ingredients cause cancer and all other manner of havoc, hormone disrupters and things like that." Research also finds phthalates linked to birth defects in young women

And, concluded Plews, "There are a hundred and sixty carcinogenic products that can be put into any product and just listed on the label as fragrance."

Regulation and standards on organic products are stringent allowing them to make claims their non organic counter parts cant back up. If you really want to know whats in your lipstick, the data base of the Environmental Working Group, Skin Deep, features all cosmetics that allow themselves to be tested and under scrutiny, showing you what hazard level it is, for information on a specific product just click on it.